A while ago we put out a call for Worst of Perth fans to nominate the Worst journalist at The West Australian Newspaper. Here are the nominations tallied up, and the the verdict, it appears is all of them! I did have one person saying they didn’t think Mark Naglazas should be in there, but they wouldn’t commit to that in writing. Here’s the list.

Had another submission today from The Daily Beast who nominated the blogging bios. Daily Beast says

Have you checked out the paper’s blogger bios on the site ? Its probably worth a nomination of its own just for the photos. What were they thinking and what are the pics meant to tell us about the people?:Bloody excruciating. No wonder they hide the bloggers on the West’s homepage so no-one can find them.”OH MY GOD don’t click on that link if you want to hold down your lunch -ed.

I love Paul Murray’s bio which says, “…after six years on talkback radio, he’s (Paul) been on the receiving end of just about every epithet invented. However, as an optimist, he’s looking forward to something completely original.”

So are we Paul, so are we. A little birdy just happened to have given me an even worse shot of Teh Paul for your enjoyment.

Pam Casalles must rate up there – back in the mid 1990s, during a previous stint for the Worst’s TV pages, she actually admitted she hadn’t heard of Leni Riefenstahl when there was a show on the German film maker being broadcast on SBS.

You missed out Jessica Strutt, who consistently polishes apples at the expense of Indigenous Western Australians for that scumbag who masquerades as an editor. It makes WA look like Alabama circa 1920. Shame.

I know its only a suburban freebie but must nominate the WESTERN SUBURBS WEAKLY with its mixture of topicality & smug liberalism [principly devoted to emancipating the WASP female] as little less than useful for wiping the dripping from the bottom of a pan.

Validating itself as more than this by appearing to be so concerned for a more humane and female friendly Perth, its mostly privelaged and white and young female editorial staff don’t just devote themselves to the uplifting of the WASP sisterhood but yes occassionly they must resort to stories that are inclusive of other types of humanity as well, god bless them.

Though they cover themselves with pernache’, like so many of those of a politically correct mentality, scratch just below the surface and what you get is the greasy slithering qualities of the reptillian and in the WSW’lys case you get a pretentious and malignant kind of class bigotry parading as information for the public. Exposing itself as thus via all the expensive real estate ads for as similar privelaged upwardly mobile and usually white.

All pretentions its editorial staff have of this rag being something more were highlighted to me by having had on more than one occassion an article or essay I may have written and sent to them with the purpose of being published refused publication and yet a week or two later an article or story so similar appears only this time toned down into a newly devised form of verbal sterility and written by one of their Waspy male-hating colleagues with a degree in whatever, it borders on copyright infringement.

Did anyone read Paul Murray’s comment on the passing of Charlie Court in The Worst on Xmas eve?. It was so self congratulatory that it ended up being more of a tribute to Paul Murray than it was for Sir Charles.

Then, to cap it off, Len Findlay just had to mention the fact that Murray was at Charlie’s funeral last Friday in his Saturday piece. Mentioning John Howard I can undersand, but why did we need to know that an ex editor of The Worst, was turned up for the occassion?

Let’s hope Murray doesn’t fall off the perch some time soon. Apart from the fact we’ll lose his bitter diatribes, his departure could well take up more print space than Ben Cousins’ alleged drug problem…

Interesting comments here on a rag which I have refused to buy ever since I’ve had little need to read the Public Announcements, Government Notices etc….. That’s about 25 years.
But a populace gets a newspaper, much as it does a government, that it deserves.
Basically “Please don’t titillate me with something that I might actually have to think about”

Mark Naglazas–for the crudest readings of film I’ve ever read–at least amateur reviewers just tell us the plot or how much they like an actor, and don’t try to sound smart as poor old Naglazas attempts.

I disagree with Ms Wigglesworth – I think Naglazas is actually quite good, even if he is a fan of Godard and was guilty of giving the Festival of Perth re-release of Contempt a rave review…I suspect he is also the only proper qualified film critic that the paper has ever had, having done a cinema masters or something similar at (I think) Murdoch.

And let’s face it, it could be far worse – Evan Williams (from The Oz) could be the the state’s first stringer, or maybe even The Worst’s Ron Banks or Kent Acott (heaven forbid). And who remembers when Mike Van Niekirk was writing film copy late last century? Surely some kind of nadir for movie criticism in this state…

If you want my two bits’ worth, they should take Paul Payne off the TV pages and put him with Naglazas on the film rounds.

Not to be outdone, Steve Scourfield’s Australia Day piece was pretty awful as well. One would have thought the editors at that rag would have caught onto this guy after the front pager he did on Jan1, 2000 – to put it simply, it was goddamn awful

Hey folks, Thanks for validating my opinion about the West and WSW (the Post is drivel too). I’ve only been in Perth for 6 months, and my partner is convinced that it is only my American arrogance that makes me think the West and those weaklies are crap.

Have you noticed that your local newsagent is so desperate to get rid of the Weekend Living section that they practically beg you not to forget to take one?

The West is particularly bad Big Tex. At least the weeklies are free! I’ve never thought of that before, they DO beg you to take the weekend thingy. There would be only 2 minutes of reading if you didn’t take it.

Not Worst Notice
After much jaw clenching, and discussion with the man himself, I’m going to have to officially label Mark Naglazas “Not Worst”. He remains the only West journo that anyone has ever disagreed with being in TWOP, and I have to admit I don’t mind some of his stuff myself.
Filmgoers are also urged to forgive the man for recommending Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt a decade or more ago to festival goers. Although it is truly one of the bum numbingly worst films of all time, everyone makes mistakes. For those who haven’t seen it, let’s just say, “It’s no Day of The Panther.”
Mark’s brass plaque and I’m Not Worst certificate are on their way.
The Lazy Aussie

And the West has today shown to be king of the bullshit artists involving the use of an old photo and passing it off as new when illustrating the absolute beatup over passenger numbers on the Mandurah Line, totally contradicting the official media release.

The Photo btw is of the trains which are on the other lines and are NOT the new 3 car sets – looks like it was photo taken on the Mandurah Line whern they were doing driver training/testing.

Good to see Jimbo McGinty on TV confirm the Lazy Aussie’s view that The West Australian is indeed the worst newspaper in Australia – even if it was in retaliation for being called the worst health minister/attorney general by the rag (talk about the kettle calling the pot black or however the cliche goes…)

Still, isn’t it funny how The Worst, yesterday, went straight into some kind of defiant self promotion mode by proclaiming that WA’s best writers included Robert Taylor, Paul Murray and Gerard Henderson?

Let’s look at this claim a little more closely. Taylor might be an ok writer, but it would be hard not be one when you have to report on nothing but politics. Personally I don’t like Henderson because he’s a John Howard apologist, however, I can’t see how he could be one of WA’s best scribes when (a) he probably lives in Sydney, and (b) his column in yesterday’s edition (Tues, Feb 26) was on page 21. If you were a newspaper editor, wouldn’t you put your best copy be a bit closer towards the front?

As for Murray, not only is his stuff usually overwritten, but sometimes he’s either completely wrong or he comes across as nothing more than a self-opinionated fence sitter.

For example, some time last year he was going on about how it was inconceivable that the US, the country that won WWII, could be bogged down in Iraq. Poor Paul should try reading a history book or two – the US ended the war in the Pacific, but it didn’t defeat the Nazis. That honour goes to the Ruskies (maybe Murray’s in that school of thought that belives it was the allied invasion of Europe in 1944 that defeated Hitler – if so, he’s merely a member of that US-centric club he sometimes seems to despise).

Then we have the Mohamed Haneef case, where Murray first of all suggested that terrorsist suspects should have no legal rights, but then attacked the federal police after it was found that Kevin Andrews had botched it all up.

There is a possible explanation why the Worst fervently promotes its mediocrity, and its roots go back to the days of, believe it or not, Brian Burke. When the Labor Party imploded at the end of the 1980s (I would argue this happened under Dowding, not Carmen), the Perth public came to the horrible realisation that the Worst (ie Murray and his journalist cohorts at the paper) had been asleep at the wheel while Burkie, Bondy and Laurie were living it up.

One only has to look at the findings of the 1992 royal commision to see that most of the breaking media reports reffered to by the commissioners which provided any idea of what was going on at the time were published in either The Sunday Times and the now gone Western Mail – not in The Worst (with the exception of some of Tim Treadgold’s stuff, which was usually pushed down to the business pages). In short, The Worst blew covering what should have been the story of the decade.

The result – the paper, under the acerbic Murray – spent the better part of the 1990s loudly (and self rightiously) promoting itself in an attempt to cover up the fact that it too was hoodwinked by all of the balloons and bunting that dominated the political landscape of the previous decade.

Strangely enough, it was the horrible Wilson Tuckey who highlighted the newspaper’s problems when he commented on the fact (circa 1999) that The Worst needed a Channel 7 TV journo (Brian Rogers) to replace the hard bitten veteran newspaper man Murray as it attempted to increase its sagging cirulction numbers.

Maybe the board of this particularly parochial and insular rag should look to the TV pool of talent once again if it ever decides to get rid of Paul Armstrong. No doubt it probably will if Kerry Stokes gets involved.

Another in the “worst journalist category”- one Gail Robinson. Writes arts articles that parade her affection for ‘young’ artists or ‘young’ writers or ‘young and female’ or if the circumstances prove necessary ‘young and multi-cultural’ and then usually if they’re from a certain background [upper middle-class] but esp, if WASP. Excuse me while I puke -BLUUGHHH!.

In short she’s another of these artsey fartsey white professional elitist feminist class bigots. And her art journalism and all the other writing jobs she gets given by such respectable journals as the ‘western suburbs weakly’ and ‘the west’ as well the ‘sunday times’ show her to be as outdated, stale and creatively dried up as one would imagine might also be the case for… (comment edited by moderator)
She’s also leading light in various arts organisations in big time Perth [as we all know] such as the king st., arts center and an organisation that resides therein funding artists and finding them arts commissions. a WA govt arts funded little nest of self-serving wasps no doubt, called ‘arts source’.

My research shows she’s no spring chicken herself and rather rotund too[far far too many pork susages down I would suggest]. A former ‘brit’ that now calls austraya home, at least right now that its convenient, god’elp’us when we ever get involved in a war with some mighty nation just above us, how many will still want to call austraya home then is anyone’s guess esp, when so many are allowed two passports these days esp., high earning professionals such as our girl Gail.

Nevertheless she’s ensconced and connected and gets lotsa gigs as one of our leading arts intellectuals and its a shame and just another pain in the asse for any creative individual/writer/artist/turd collector that is not part of the system nor wants to be necessarily.

Artsource is one of the good guys Greg. As far as I know they are still a membership based organisation looking after their members interests. There are far more cliquey parts of the arts landscape in Perth

Hmm, kind of esoteric and arcane target there greg. It would be easy enough to ignore except, as one of what I think is a minority of women who frequent this site, I have to condemn the really offfensive misogyny.

I’ve never heard of the woman, or ever read an arts article because YAWN and your comments leave me none the wiser as to what’s worst about her journalism, all you’ve conveyed is that you don’t like her or how she looks. And you’ve published it, and if those comments were about me I’d be seeing my lawyers.

This is about innate worstness, not personal bigotry (unless your prejudice happens to be against glass bricks, fatty sausages and wilson tuckey.)

Re #38 & #40
Lisa, I have to admit that I didn’t get all the way through Greg’s comment. I scanned quickly for the phrase “young white lesbians” and moved on. I don’t see anything that might be a legal problem, but yes Greg, let’s lighten it up just a little bit in future. This one probably the wrong side of ranting where people are involved. For buildings, the tone is just right. Yes I know I called Tuckey a wanker, but apart from all that, you’re not helping my fucking grant application!

Yeh I don’t know. I wouldn’t have a clue who’s what sex on here, I’m just guessing.

I beg to differ on the legal question… If someone said mine was outdated, stale and creatively dried up (without ever having been near it) they would definitely have a legal problem. It’s like if you inferred from Paul Murray’s journalism that he had a small… oh hang on, that’s not questionable at all.

“This particular woman [gail robinson] I rail against is of a club or clique [esp within australian arts circles as well the world of politics] deliberately orchestrating a very spiteful and uncalled for blacklisting of me and have done as such for many years.”

Welcome to the wonderful world of Perth media, where if you piss one person off, there are too few alternate print media outlets to turn to, and too few people to stop vicious rumours from circulating.

I’m not endorsing this at all, but come on. To tread carefully is the only advice I would impart. And if you’re not going to tread carefully and publish a bit of opinion on a fairly well publicised site about someone well known within the media that you’ve had a conflict with, at least be amusing so you’d look like a great interview subject and make people reconsider.

But surely, as someone who appears to have attempted to get press before, that wouldn’t be a surprise?

More germane to the topic, someone reminded me today about Paul Murray “finding” the wreck of The Sydney. I tried to search for the West link for that triumph, but was unsuccessful. Maybe Mr link can find it.

Mea culpa , mea culpa Jade , but i’ll invoke my last neurone to say this : beneath the light hearted banter (ha! ha! ha! ) there is a serious intent. At the top of the post is Paul Murray a journalist reduced to writing fourth rate rubbish in a third rate paper in an obscure town all by the effects of the evil influence of Balecohol , the demon drink , Beelzebottle, Prince of the night time. Is Grog’s failure to find outlets for his creativity the result of maidens who love maidens or of stupor natural forces mediated by sausages. Only Grog knows.

Despite what I have said previously, the actual motivator for starting this blog was to have a forum where I could label Paul Murray as the worst journo in Australia. So you have Teh Paul to blame for “WA’s Best Blog”. Maybe someone should thank him.

[More germane to the topic, someone reminded me today about Paul Murray “finding” the wreck of The Sydney. I tried to search for the West link for that triumph, but was unsuccessful. Maybe Mr link can find it.]

[I’m sure there was a sequel with Murray dragging his arse out there to supervise. Did I dream that?]

It was probably a Today Tonight story you saw, or even a Seven News item.

If you can stomach it, I recommend grabbing the DVD of Access 31’s Cafe Talk where Gerry Gannon interviews Murray – talk about a mutual wanking session and a very borderline breach of the Community Broadcasting regulations regarding advertising and product placement -)

Best bet for back copies of the West are the Microfilm versions at the Battye Library, though I don’t know how recent they start archiving them – you can get photocopies for 10 cents a page (it may be more).

Or if you have friends who have access to the Lexus Nexus legal library, they also store full articles, though not in the versions as published, ie no headline banner or photos.

Thank you, I strive to amuse, unlike Greg who perhaps has a specific agenda or maybe a disorder.

How about a new self-referential category:
Worst of Perth Blog Insults.

Obviously I nominate Greg for his tortured and deeply felt compositions. I have this mental image that I can’t shake of gobbets of drool on the keyboard and a mouse slicked in sweat.
You lose points for #65 though. Difficult to tell how nasty it is meant to be but that does’nt matter cos it’s FUNNY.

I or someone else, (perhaps greg/lisa) should start a blog called Young white lesbians. The traffic would be large. Greg, why don’t you go to wordpress.com and register it for free? Could be a fantastic blog about three young white lesbians trying to get $70 000 from the arts council for a conceptual naked performance piece with a theme of blacklisting you from the arts community. Would be awesome. It would be the new Crucible. You build it, I’ll link it, as long as it’s called young white lesbians. If you don’t register it by next week I’ll do it myself, but do I really have to carry the total burden of Perth satire?
This is rapidly heading towards the most commented post, even though most of the comments are a little off course.

If we can somehow tie it in to the property boom in WA I’m in. Could the YWLs be slum landlords as well? In a devastating confluence/coincidence, one of their tenants turns out to be GREG’S UNKNOWN SON!

Quote david cohen-
“If we can somehow tie it in to the property boom in WA I’m in. Could the YWLs be slum landlords as well? In a devastating confluence/coincidence, one of their tenants turns out to be GREG’S UNKNOWN SON!”

David how bout this for an idea young white ashkenazi jewish lesbians demolish slum tenements and strave bomb palestinian tenement dwellers.
While the David Cohens of the world campaign for racial toleration.

“Contrariwise, it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic”

could we return to the thread: dissing the Wet Alsation

my last incident of incandescent indignation at Armstrong was a pathetic front page piece with the headline “West Australians do not support saying sorry” prior to Rudd’s apology.

the paper claimed that their own Westpoll had discover that Sandgropers did not support the apology. when you looked at the poll results, the majority of people surveyed actually supported the apology. the West therefore broke the results down by place of birth and first language, and when you only counted those polled who were born in the state did you get a result that agreed with the headline, even though these were a minority of those polled.

a terrific example of how the West will fabricate a story to suit their agenda. I was all fired up to make a complaint to the press council (or whomever), when Kerry rode over the horizon on his cavalry horse and hope flickered in my heart that Armstrong would get the bullet

the extraordinary General Meeting to elect the new board does not happen until until April 23rd, so this story will drag on and on. hopefully the slowly increasing pressure on Armstrong will torture him.

I got polled in that one – they were specifically looking for people who were born overseas.

To me the analysis seemed to promote a confused political agenda, something like – native Western Australians who are innately/inherently racised are in danger of being swamped by liberal-minded immigrants.

And that’s BAD. Not only are they importing their foreign ways in food and culture – but they’re undermining our proud racist heritage by importing their values of justice and equality.

And therefore we shouldn’t say sorry because REAL Australians don’t support it. And they were here when it happened so it’s their decision.

I didn’t want to spark a debate about the Apology, and certainly not about Australian racism in general, because that will attract the very worst type of rabid ranters, but I agree entirely with your interpretation of the West’s agenda.

I was told once that journalists at the West are instructed that they are to imagine a typical reader called Betty from Balga, and write as if addressing her specifically.

I infer that Betty is white, fifth generation, below average earnings and IQ, has a short attention span, and doesn’t read, wathc or listen to any other media.

Well, you do have to cater to a certain audience in order to keep readership up. The more EXTREEM and controversial, the easier it is on the eye. They also say that one should write from personal experience…

(Ps: Greg. Has more to do with my hardened love of basic spelling and grammar rather than my undefined politic. I do actually like Lewis Carrol though, so it isn’t all bad.)

Today this post became the all time most viewed, and all time most commented, overtaking “The Real Brothel is Here” for views, and “Deckard The Halls” for comments. Mind you, a lot of the comments have been more about YWL’s than the paper.

that’s the trouble with that paper, there is nothing that alerts you to what day it is – current news, for instance.

I don’t buy it, you see. so I only pick up copies in reception at work. I must get into the habit of checking the date at the top.

everything in it is a few days old, probably because most of their news is taken off the wire, and they rely on the ABC for breaking news in WA. Chances ae you’ve already heard or read the story somewhere else before you get to the Worst.

I registered Frank, but it’s pretty dry. I thought it might be a blog, but it’s about core shareholder value blah blah. I did ask them if they will be getting rid of that pompous blowhard Paul Murray and the burnt out boredom machine Pam Casellas if they take over. Will update here with replies.

I thought I’d blather on for 5000 words about how I used to be the editor of the Worst Australian, and also to test an avatar. I don’t believe in avatars despite knowing nothing about them, but will bang on about them at great length. Did you know they pay me by the word?. I also believe in Pam Casellas…

Did I mention I was a pompous blowhard, and perhaps the worst writer in Australia, Gerard Henderson not excepted?When I was teamed up with Howard Sattler I also demonstrated that I have a superb voice for newspaper columns. The deep timbre of a bush chicken linked to a brain of a donut. And where the fuck is my Gravatar? How do you make these things work? I was only saying to Len Findlay the other day that I have written at length on the topic of Gravatars not working before. We also spoke for some time on the subject of pulling newspaper columns directly out of the arse without the need for a word processor…

Dear porcelain, allow me to pontificate at length on how I have definitely not been to Toronto. Toronto is a town I would like to write about, despite knowing nothing about it. I label it a disgrace, although in a future column I may label as a model for the Western Australian government to follow.

What I would like to know from you, the people of Western Australia is did you have to do anything else apart from supply a picture and email to get a gravatar to work? A reader asked me Paul Nurry to go on at length about how to make one work. Not wanting to do the slightest bit of research on the topic, I thought I’d throw it open to you, the people of western australia to decide whether the working of gravatars is a topic that could consume a whole column of perhaps 5000 words. Kidney transplants, I may also be against those, I don’t know. I used to be editor, did you know that?

Paul perhaps you could give us your perspective on the Stokes takeover rumourmill :) Paul I believe Laaaaaze will be able to enlighten you. The exact pixel aspect ratio may be the problem with the erection of your avatar!

Having cropped the avatar on several occasions I did not believe I needed to make any other pontification on the subject. Are you telling the people of western australia that the original picture needs to be 80px by 80?

As for Kerry Stokes, I am prepared to be a pompous blowhard for Kerry, unless I am required to do any work researching said drivel. If Kerry is prepared to let me pull 5000 words out of my arse several times a week (And let’s be clear that he’d be a fucking idiot if he did) I’d be prepared to take on a brief of writing ignorant tosh. At the moment I am against the board takeover, but knowing me I may be for it tomorrow. I was saying to Stephen Scourfield the other day that Stokes would be a moron not to sack me and Pam casellas in 2 seconds flat. 2 seconds flat being the operative time to sack someone who wasn’t pulling their weight, getting back to my earlier point 5000 words later that I may be for or against the takover. all I know is that everyone else is wrong on the subject, wheras I, who has no knowledge on the topic is right.

Falling off the wgon is the right of every western australian. As I said in my column about falling off the wagon being the right of every west australian, it is indeed our birthright. I would like to expand on how I know more about falling off the wagon than even experienced wagon manufacturers, but I really want to know why this gravatar doesn’t work. A working gravatar is the birthright of every west australian. I haven’t contacted gravatar, because I don’t believe in research or doing any work.

I have backflipped. Falling off the wagon is not the birthright of every west australian. I will not refer to my previous stance of being pro wagon falling. Not being criticised for waffle that contradicts current waffle is the right of every west australian.

I think Paul should have a tilt at mediating TWOP for a few days! His insightful views deserve more exposure beyond the Worst Eustralian or is this a cunning Trojan horse entry all along disguised as a Trojan Horse!I think the mantle of crackpot just got handed over – phew!!

“Director Andrew Hale admitted that fundamental atheists and Christians would find the play offensive, but said he wanted to make The York Crucifixion accessible to a wide audience, who could make up their own minds about the depiction.”

What is a “fundamental atheist,” and why would he/she find the play offensive?

As usual, I Paul Nurry am right and you are wrong. Before bringing my ignorance and pompous stupidity to bear as the editor of a big city newspaper, I was an ignorant and stupid country bumpkin. In my bumpkin days I observed many cow udders in the paddocks. Having observed these mammmary glands, this means that I Paul Nurry am an expert on them, wheras you university educated types are wrong and I am right. It is quite healthy and natural for these udders to be displayed again and again in the newspaper. What is not right is that someone who has an education should be allowed to bring attention to them in the first place.

Hate to say this Mr Nurry, but PM’s not a total country bumpkin (although I must admit he looked like one during his ill-fated appearance as a TV journo a few years back – another position he couldn’t keep – and, yes, he even made Bob Maumill sound like a mamber of the chardonnay set during his time with 6PR). Apparently he studied geology for a year before embarking on his fabulous newspaper career. Given he appears to be so anti university, maybe he had a traumatic time there.

But imagine if he had become a rock kicker – he could have occupied any AGM with long winded tales of why certain styles of mineralisation offended him and society as a whole. Take that chalcopyrite, you filthy and corrupted green bastard….

Once again I have discovered the wreck of the Sydney. Only by making a complete tit of myself and discovering a sunken fishing boat did I make possible this triumph of actually finding it for real. I Paul Nurry take total credit for the finding of the Sydney again. In fact no-one has found it as many times as I have. If in fact if it is not the Sydney again, that only goes to show how right I was before when I didn’t find it months before someone else didn’t find it.

My Ning. You university types would learn a lot by having to shit outdoors like us former rock kickers. You would learn how a grit filled crack can spur you on to greater opportunities of crapping in the bush. That’s how I found the Sydney the first time, by crapping outdoors, this time in the Abrolhos. Crapping outdoors is something you university types will never understand…

The four non-executive directors of West Australian Newspapers sealed their fate over the weekend with a bizarre suicide pact to resign en masse if Channel Seven controlling shareholder Kerry Stokes gets elected to the board at the EGM on April 23 (the notice of meeting was released at 11.30am this morning).

Whilst trading on the ASX continues without formal confirmation of this tactic, today’s press reports were emphatic and quoted the gang of four, led by chairman Peter Mansell, as follows:

We will not serve with them – even if shareholders do not vote to remove us. Taking into account past communications between Mr Stokes and the board, we believe it would be impossible for us to work constructively with Mr Stokes to advance the interests of all WAN shareholders.

It is hard to recall a more belligerent or obstinate establishment board. First, they have completely ignored a chorus of complaints, including numerous adverse Press Council findings, about the chaotic and bull-headed editor of The West Australian, Paul Armstrong.

Editorial independence is one thing, but to then completely reject the idea that a billionaire media mogul is entitled to a board seat on becoming the largest shareholder, was just ridiculous.

Kerry Stokes was left with no option but to put his wishes direct to the shareholders and now the board has said they will completely ignore the will of the majority and collectively pull the plug if Stokes is embraced, as he should be.

Re: 149: Oh dear , a great , gaping hole where there used to be a great, gaping hole. I’ve got the dog-kitty dilemma : I don’t know whether to be sad , happy or beat my chest. ( This is also the primate’s ( as in chimp) dilemma when faced with life’s deep puzzles).

I loved the action shot of the removal, I hope it held up lots of traffic. Maybe TWOP should invest in a crane with a TWOP logo on the side that you can hire out for these occasions. Sadly the sculpture is now a lot closer to me than it was previously and I am far more likely to set eyes on it than before.

imagine if it all went to Gomboc – there could be a special TWOP Sculpture Garden with the Boozies, the arse-scratcher, the walruses, the mud men, headless Yagan – all watched over by the Cockburn Mugshots.

City mayors and town planners would be forced to spend a day trapped in there before being allowed to commission any public art

You keep saying that The West could do better for its shareholders. Anyone who’s not a shareholder doesn’t care. If you concentrate on being better for the READERS you will have the whole state on your side. Announce you will be sacking Armstrong, Paul Murray and Pam Casellas, and you will have everyone in the state on your totally for you, and that means the shareholders will flock. It just sounds like you are interested only in the money. Turn your very dry website into a blog, where people in WA can have their say, and you will have it made. keep saying shareholder value, and people couldn’t give a crap.

Maybe, but Bob will now be the light and fluffy version since Gary S is leaving, try Howard Sattler, or even Chris Ilsley who does Mid-Dawns – that show is full of crackpots – more so than during the day.

Let me state from the outset how right I am on Paul Nurry Hour. For those not in the know, Paul Nurry Hour is green propaganda that claims to be able to save 2 million tonnes of greehouse gases by getting me, Paul Nurry to shut up for one hour this weekend. The Greens claim that by me, Paul Nurry shutting up for one hour would be like taking 5000 Howard Sattlers of air for a year, or 10 000 4 wheel drives.

I dispute these figures. Me shutting up for one hour is not going to solve the problems of the world. I was only saying to Paul Armstrong the other day about what an expert I am on shutting up. If I wanted to stop the bullshit, no-one knows more on the topic or any other topic than me Paul Nurry. If I wanted to shut up, I could, and no green nazis are going to tell me they know more about shutting up. Why not tell China to shut up. Or Bob Maumill for that matter. If you really want to save some hot air, Bob shutting his gob for 5 minutes would be like taking 5000 Brad Hardies off the air for 10 years.

Have any of you dumb bastards been taken in by Nurry Hour. I haven’t, and you know how right I am.

seriously LA
perhaps consider sending these thoughts, links, etc. on to Fairfax. If they are serious about creating an alternative news platform for Perth then they should be looking for disgruntled readers – and they have more money than 7

If they were really serious about a Perth presence, they’d be paying to have The Worst of Perth as part of their stable.

The refresh the west website really shows that Stokes is not going to be saviour as far as the readers are concerned. If it was a blog, he’s have the whole public behind him, and the shareholders would have to follow.

I agree! – TWOP should be syndicated nationally and people from the East Coast should be forced to read it with their morning coffee if for no other reason to watch them seeth and rant about our silly little pimple.

Not sure if this newspaper will ever change though. People keep on buying it for some unknown reason. But I guess they watch channel 7 too who, like WANews, seem only concerned about their clients the advertisers. Full page ads for IGA and Liquorland are as annoying as Carpet Call ads during the cricket. People power? maybe. My inner anarchist still lives in hope – Turn off, tune out and stop buying the bloody thing!!

Well as far as refreshing, it’d be a start if they refreshed the website every once in a while. I rarely look at the west online but I did today for the weather. My eye was caught by a scintillating headline about a crash on the mitchell causing traffic chaos.

Hello! I thought. Have we deregulated already to the extent that so many ppl have to work on Good Fri that there’s traffic congestion at 7am?

Of course not: it was from this time yesterday.

So I think I’ll look at Bureau of Meteorology instead, assuming that ‘today’s’ weather is Thursdays, etc.

I picture the webmaster getting completely arseholed last night at that horrible bar above a shop on Scabby Beach Rd opposite the old Ikea. Or is the site always 24 hours behind? Really what’s the point of online news that tells you about yesterday’s traffic jams?

Yeah Mez, ‘Why do we buy this fucking rag?’ I don’t know, but it’s on my verge every morning.

[I picture the webmaster getting completely arseholed last night at that horrible bar above a shop on Scabby Beach Rd opposite the old Ikea. Or is the site always 24 hours behind? Really what’s the point of online news that tells you about yesterday’s traffic jams?]

Unless they are not publishing any online content on Good Friday, like the Dead Tree version.

It’s a bit rough that the print medium monopoly in Perth hasn’t managed to gather enough simple wit amongst it’s operatives (I was going to say journalists, but that would be an insult to the profession) to be able to divine their errors [u]before[/u] they get to press.
No use complaining though if people insist on continuing to buy the useless rag.

How interesting to hear you young people talk about mistakes in our beloved West. It’s not easy you know to just write something dearies. I challenge any of you to throw back a litre of Paddle Wheel and come up with something several times a month without making a mistake.

It’s so easy to make a small mistake that can throw out an entire piece. For example:
In my breaking story on how interesting cats are last week, I said “I’m so cold, my pussy is frozen solid.”, when I meant to write “IT’S so cold my pussy is frozen solid.” I got so carried away with how interesting it would be to write about the behavior of cats, that my attempt at entendre was undermined by me saying “I’m” instead of “it’s”. What could have been highly amusing, with people in a delicious quandry about whether it was my bits or my cat that was frozen, the fact that I used “I’m”, I only managed to give the major impression that I had a frozen c*nt. What I wanted was for people to pretty well know that it was my cat that had the problem, leaving open an amusing linguistic turn that made it appear that I might be unaware that I was giving the impression that my c*nt was iced over instead, not for me to be virtually stating outright that my c*nt was the frozen item. So before you criticise, I hope you see, I’m not so easy, I mean It’s not so easy is it?

[Surprising that McGinty hasn’t instructed the Registrar of BDMs to just publish the info on its website – destroy The West’s monopoly on this vital info.]

The West went feral after Gallop moved all the Govt Jobs/Tenders online.

Re: BDM’s if they moved them ,the West would lose money from all the Wogs who put in long death notices, the family notices are usually published every day until the day of the funeral and often with a photo.

Russell………. (TWOP readership still too young to savour the obituaries).
Not so! Not So! Apart from the truth about my advancing years (to which I object vociferously) I take great delight in taking note of all those contemporaries of mine who, after short but financially successful careers, have carked it before they had a chance to get around to enjoying their ill gotten gains.
It’s a great life if you don’t weaken ;)

And poor, poor lisa, *please* stop referring to “front bottoms” so frequently.
It stirs up distant memories of things that society seems to believe that persons of my length of tooth should not have any inclination towards.

Any dill with a modicum of editorial nouse would have known that the real point behind Paul Murray’s ingenious linking of Earth Day with the Carpenter Government and Griffin Coal on Easter Saturday was not to highlight the fact that two new coal fired power stations are being built (thus proving beyond any doubt whatsoever that everyone in the world – except the author of course – is a hypocrite), but to totally miss altogether the rather important fact that it was none other than Julian Grill, who is still refusing to apologise for manipulating brainless Labor pollies, who had lobbied for the coal sector just around the time Western Power was set to be de-aggragated and the power station contracts were set to go out for tender.

Any journo who wasn’t overflowing with sanctimonious and indignant self-importance perhaps would have made the point that Mr Grill should also be asked to apologise to the people of WA for successfully promoting these smoke belching monstrosities.

Of course that might be asking too much – at best it suggests that maybe the erstwile editor of The Worst might have had to inject a little humour into his waffling, something, it seems, is a little beyond his capacity.

And speaking of public enemies, it occured to me, while reading the Worst of all things, that despot African dictator Robert Mugabe has been in power since 1980 when Zimbabwe was given its independence. If memory serves me correctly, Wilson Tuckey has also been in federal politics since 1980 when the seat of O’Conner was created. Coincidence or conspiracy? Maybe I could fart out 5000 words on that….

Let me say from the outset that this post may contain a picture of a slowly leaking bag of wind. There, would that warning stop you reading me Paul Nurry? The same Paul Nurry that is so right on every subject it would make your eyes water? The Federal Government wants to put cigarette-style warning labels on alcohol packaging in a bid to stop binge drinking.

But a leading boredom expert says people won’t want to see a picture of paint drying when they sit down to read a piece by me Paul Nurry.

Would a graphic picture of a fart in a bottle be sufficient warning to stop the general public being bored shitless by one of my bum numbing blather fests? No of course not. It is the god given right of every Western Australian to be bored shitless by me Paul Nurry. I was just saying to John Townsend the other day about how right I was all the time. Everyone should be allowed to be bored shitless by me, and a graphic photograph of a slightly damp teatowel shouldn’t be allowed to spoil the enjoyment of people who don’t binge on being bored by my writing. Most west Australians do not overdo the reading of my columns. In fact none of them do. I have never even heard of anyone reaching the last paragraph. Let me say from the outset that they would be dead if they did, but they have the right to live their lives as they wish.

I was just saying to Pam Mosellas the other day how right I was about not having to see a graphic picture of a steaming cowpat on every one of my columns.

She replied with what I Paul nurry call “a non seccateur” (that is, not a tree pruning device as I am to lazy and stupid to look up the term for an argument or comment that does not follow, but if I Paul Nurry want to call it a non seccateur, that means it is right and you are wrong with all your university educated types pruning your gardens like you were in a university tutorial can shove your seccateurs up your over educated arses) In any case Pam replied that I was a . ..Rest of comment edited. I think we get the idea Mr Nurry.

Nurries there’s no challengers to you as far as non speckled manure goes. I also share your hatred of over educated university types. The whole lot of ’em should be shot, and let you ,me and Janet Albrechtsen run things. ( The holy triumphant triumvirate).
Anyways , more interestingly ,did Mosellas have any new frontbottom jokes ; i’m sure she channels Mrs Slowcum.

As for sourcing terrible children’s names – look no further than articles about ‘struggling working families’ in The Worst. The pickings are rich. That’s where I found two of my favourites – Starley and Chantilly.

I was thinking of that fantastic book as “As I lay Dying” just this weekend LA. I saw some footage of the World Youth Day Cross and Icon of Mary which has been carried all over the world (apparently by youth) since 1985. It reminded me of Cash and his family carrying their dead mother around in her coffin for weeks – with the vultures following.
The Cross and (unidentified) Icon of Mary is currently in Aus and will be in Perth in June and may provide some posts for TWOP.

recent research has shown that children with unusual or daft names (Maddison, Britney) will do worse at school, and in life in general, than kids with nice sensible names (apparently James and Sophie being the luckiest, James Packer being given as an example of someone who has thrived due to his name, although I would have thought it was his surname that ensured his future happiness)

however, if you normalize the results for all other factors, particularly socio-economic background, your name has no effect.

this is because if you have a daft name, it is because your parents are stupid and probably poor. you will have crawled from a very shallow gene pool and be starting out in life from the back of the pack

I remember last year there were eight girls named Chardonnay, only three of which were spelt correctly

To be fair, sometimes Paul Murray is right on the money. Take, for instance, this somewhat autobiographical piece he wrote for The Worst last December 20:

“I watched that Grumpy Old Men Christmas special on the ABC … and thought what a tiresome bunch of old farts they were.

“It would be easier to put up with their grumblings if they were funny. Since a few of them are comedians, surely it’s not too much to ask.”

That pretty much sums him up, wouldn’t you say? And since he is passed off by the newspaper as WA’s top political writer (not to mention one of its eminent columnists), surely it’s not too much to ask him to remember the poor reader from time to time.

As I sit down to write my latest column, a wistful 20,000 word piece on why youth is not wasted on the young, I am reminded of the fact (as I often am while mulling over this subject, which is often) that not only is my stuff universally read, but it is also cherished by my readership.

Honestly, I can’t take my little doggie for a walk through the park or sip cappas in the art gallery coffee lounge without someone coming up to me with a copy of an article I’ve written that they have snipped out of The Worst to carry around with them.

It seems that everywhere I go these days, people – some of them complete strangers – find the urge to publicly agree with me. Sometimes they quote what I say back to me, nodding their heads in confirmation as they speak, while at others they just want to congratulate me on being so perceptive all of the time.

On such occasions I have found that we share common enemies, including the readers of The Australian, those who have the temerity to criticise The Worst, Jim McGinty, David Hicks, members of the Potato Board, those hypercritical Greenies who believe turning off their lights for an hour on a Saturday night will negate windbags like me who make a living from emitting carbon, The Lazy Aussie, and that cursed Paul Nurry (no relation).

But back to the column. I guess 20,000 words is an awful lot of copy so, seeing I’m being paid by the word, I think I’ll pad things out by quoting stuff already written by aspiring teen artists – word for word! There – that’ll do it. All I have to do now is collect my cash from Paul (the world’s best and most accurate newspaper editor after yours truly) and my work’s done.

Tomorrow I think I’ll spit one out on why PM Kev should bend over for the Bush administration just like Howard did. Whoops, I can’t do that – Gerard Henderson beat me to it. Of course Greg Sheridan probably did the same thing about four months ago, but luckily none of our readers will know how far behind the eight ball The Worst really is – after all, nobody in WA reads The Australian.

My Ning, this is one of the funnies comments I have read. Can Paul Murray get any more cringeworthy or lazy?

“Honestly, I can’t take my little doggie for a walk through the park or sip cappas in the art gallery coffee lounge without someone coming up to me with a copy of an article I’ve written that they have snipped out of The Worst to carry around with them.”

I’m still laughing over that My Ning

Has nobody at the place got the nerve to tell Murray he’s embarrassing himself and the paper? Are colleagues snickering behind his back? Perhaps everyone in the office has started carrying around Murray columns to whip out when they meet each other in the corridors?

And yes how incredible that he pads out the rest of his tripe with with the kiddies own descriptions! I can just imagine him pottering around the gallery jotting down the tykes revelations, muttering “This is gold! Gold I tells ya!”, under his breath. Possibly he asked the front counter if they had it in a word document so he wouldn’t have to type it out himself.

Possibly one of the laziest and most laughable pieces the great man has written since he discovered the Sydney last year.

Hello Dearies. It’s me Pam Mosellas again. Gee aren’t young people wacky and funny? When I noticed for the millionth time how wacky and funny they are, I thought it would be great to do a story on how wacky and funny they were. What about these mobile phones eh? How wacky and funny they are. Despite the fact that they have been around for decades, I still manage to be amazed how wacky and funny they are. Again. A phone without a cord? Get out of here!

I find it so rude that everytime I start a conversation with someone, (remember conversations? They are what we used to have before these wacky and funny young people came out with their mobile phones). Anyway, I find it so rude that everytime I start a conversation with someone, they start furiously texting. Quite often they start talking on their funny and wacky mobile phones, even though I haven’t even heard them ring. Sometimes the phones don’t even appear to have batteries. Isn’t technology funny and wacky how it can do things like that now? Sometimes people just hold their hand up to their ear and start chatting away even without a phone, just at the moment I start to have a conversation about how wacky and funny young people are. How wacky and funny is that?

Probably worse was Paul Murray condemning Gordon Ramsay’s bad language and how offensive our culture has become on the same day the West had a picture of a man who had been set on fire on the front page. He’s got to be Australias most pompous and idiotic writer.

Sent this to letters. Funnily has not been published.

letters to editor
I’m aware that Paul Murray is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but today’s column really takes the cake. Apart from mistaking television for real life, complaining about offensive language from comedy chef Gordon Ramsay on the same day his own newspaper has a graphic photograph of a burning man on the front page, is an irony surely even Paul Murray could appreciate. People don’t have to watch the hilarious Ramsay if they don’t want to, but most people will not be able to avoid the cover of The West. Grow up a bit Paul. If we can deal with a picture of a man on fire, then I’m sure we will be able to cope with a few swear words on a television program.

Nice letter LA.
In defence of lesbians, young or old:
Murray just looks like a drunken old munt.
Pam doesn’t look like any kind of lesbian to me, she just looks like a tired 70’s journalist who can write long ‘news’ articles about quilting.

I thought that Pam had really found her niche with the quilting feature. Better she crap on about cosy homebody stuff that exemplifies her outlook on life than turn her blinkered views onto broader topics, like current affairs

next – jam making!

I have an important question: just how many cats do you think Pam has?

I have it on good authority from a journo that used to work under Murray when he was editor that the guy swears like a trooper – especially after a few sherbets – it’s just that he does not do it in a manner that is entertaining enough to warrant his own TV show. Or radio show.

I thought your letter to the editor should have contained some swearing. It’s not big, but it can be clever. It was very restrained of you to write about Nurry without using the phrase “sanctimonious c*nt”

Yes you could make puns about quilts but I think the effect would be to make a dull life even duller. But how about this Pam Casellas naked on a quilt , or would that attract the attention of the Police Geriatric Abuse Squad.

I’ve endured a TWOP-less week on Rotto. Well nearly TWOP-less: I checked it briefly on the internet terminal at the visitor centre once, and a couple of times via someone’s BlackBerry. Internet on a BlackBerry is very unsatisfying.

Have a few Rotto suggestions for LA. Perhaps the best one is the souvenir hat that’s supposed to look like a quokka.

I Paul Nurry at first blush can categorically deny that I have dried up. As an expert in everything, including drying up, let me say say that I deny that I or the river Murray has dried. No Murray is dry OK. I am, let me say at the outset as wet as a bride’s nightie. More so. As an expert on nun’s, I am able to say I am wetter. Much wetter. In fact compared to a nun’s camel’s, I am wetter by orders of magnitude. Anodyne. I also like saying that, or is it ameliorate? Who knows. I don’t know what they mean or whether they fit in, but at first blush they mean I’m not dried up. As an expert on language, words will say what I mean them to say. If I want anodyne to mean that I Paul Murray at first blush am not as dry as a nun’s camel’s, then those words will not fail to mean that, no matter what Kevin Rudd and his green disciples say. On another anodyne. Barra fat wog cunt? I Paul Nurry categorically deny that at first blush that Barra is at the outset a bigger cunt than me. Let him run a major newspaper and then tell me cuntwise that he is at the outset bigger, if not wetter. He only had to deal with Basil Zempilas. Did barra have to share the executive bog with Howard Sattler at 6pr. The fuck he did. I totally ameliorate that graffiti. I ameliorate everything if that means that I Paul Nurry am right. Being right is what I am rightest about, no matter how people have been deceived by that anodyne Kevin Rudd.

I Paul Nurry furthermore have had lots more experience (real life experience, not your uni namby-pamby so-called learning) with rivers and water. It’s universally known in the wolrd of journalism I regularly held back the waters of the Swan so people I admired from South Perth could get to the Weld Club on time. If people want to attend my club and listen to me expound on my many areas of expertise and erudition why should the bleeding-heart environment get in their way? This world is for movers and shakers and takers, not whining whinging hand-wrigning bloggers and lezzos and assorted leftys who wouldn’t work in an iron lung. People at the Club always nod in agreement when I make my finely-judged points. They know I, Paul Nurry, am always right. They do not have the audacity to question my wisdom, and why should they when I am yet to have been found to be wrong. They want to call me Rivers of Gold, because of my Midas-like grasp of wisdom and commonsense. If it makes them happy then so be it. Who am I to get in the way of people wanting to worship me? I think I’ll create and part a river in Holland Park, as it’s been a quiet week here. Then I’ll throw a Year 12 artwork in it. It will make a great column that will be in all the anthologies.

Abbasolute Plonker
It’s been another quiet week at Nurry Park. Some cunt chainsawing something or other, but even I Paul Nurry couldn’t spin that into 3000 words, or could I? At first blush writing about the fact that there is nothing to write about would at the outset appaear to be beyond even the powers of I Paul Nurry. Let me then switch to my area of specialty – Things I know fuck all about. Let me say at first blush that I Paul Nurry am an expert on film criticism, despite knowing nothing about the topic. I Paul Nurry cannot understand the critics of Mamma Mia, mainly because I don’t understand critics. Those over educated universuty types as well as those who have actually studied the topic cannot match the brute ignorance of I Paul Nurry. Knowing fuck all has never hampered me in the past. But let me say at first blush that the critics are wrong, and I Paul Nurry am right. The reason that Meryl Streep hasn’t taken on a role as shitty as this before, is that she has never been given the opportunity of a role of such poor quality before. Meryl has been wanting to do a shit role for years, but keeps getting offered quality parts.
Let me at first blush go on to say some gibberish about the soundtrack of our generation. Sometimes I even astound myself what comes out of my (Paul Nurry’s) pen.

And another thing: I, Poorl Knurry, should be a movie critic for all the papers in Australia. With my fabled intellect and sensible sensitivities I am far more better placed to assess the artistic merits of une fillums. I am the auteur of Hollandaise Fart. Why oh why haven’t they made a film about AC/DC or ZZTop or 10CC? I would critique those in a flash and say all the right things. One of the most memorable evenings I hosted with all my friends at the Weld Club was an ABBA dance party. It was a fundraiser for the Young Liberals. It was acknowledged by everyone there that I was the best dancer, the best singer, the best drinker. “Poorl Knurry you are a Renaissance Man”, they all cried after seeing me boogy to Winner Takes It All (which could the songtrack of my life, as many Art Gallery Cafe patrons have reminded me). Wake up you namby-pamby goateed beret-wearing latte slurping lefty fillum critics and speak sense. I know I do.

“You realise that this poular music is the soundtrack of our lives. The joy of our youth is enmeshed in the rhythm of the songs we loved and is unlocked when we hear it again.”
– Paul Murray

Funny, I thought the soundtrack for his life would have been the sound of his own voice as he continually whinged to all his mates in the sandpit about how they (and everyone else for that matter) weren’t up to scratch with his intellect. Chances are this is exactly the sort of sountrack that his kids and little doggie have to listen to day in and day out…

Really, the only joy this moaning, miserable, boring hack propably had in his youth was more akin with “Strength Through Joy’, a slogan for the Hitler youth arm of the German nazi party.

The bottom line – if Nuzza asks you over to his house for a video night, forget it. Also, if he wants to be the DJ at your wedding, weasel out of that one too – otherwise there’s the threat you might end up having to listen to the greatest hits of the Captain and Tennelle.

Steady on now, Mamma Mia needed defending by someone of Paul’s stature! After they read The Age’s scathing critique, Perth’s humble folk were avoiding this unpretentious fun bit of fluff at the cinema because the Age’s critic said Meryl is better at playing concentration camp victims.

But when they read the Nurry column they realised they’d been led into dodgy highbrow ways by a sinister chattering-classes Melbourne type and decided to give it a go. You see how much influence the man has? He’s the only one with enough guts to take on a controversial review by the Age’s film critic in Perth’s daily paper. Or at least to pad out his 3,000 with 5 paragraphs of quotes from it.

And with all the Paul Nurry Madness today, The Worst of The West Australian regains its crown as the most popular post from Fax it West, the sad story of fairfax online in Perth. I think that the West will remain number one now as Fairfax slowly (quickly) dies in the arse. Even Skink isn’t reading it anymore. Tumbleweeds, crickets and dogs barking in the distance. At least I assume so, as I can’t be bothered reading it myself. I do know that the email news alert comes out hours after any other organisation.

yeah, well I don’t read it anymore either but still get the curiously similar Community News crudely shoved into my letterbox each week. I wonder if there may be a career for Mr. Nurry writing the editorial for the Melville Times… couldn’t get much worse(t)

The Federal Court on Tuesday found that Australians who feel continually ripped off because the only daily newspaper on offer is a pile of shit have a constitutional right to annoy those blinkered, ignorant journo hacks who fart out columns which rely mostly on quotes from much better stories appearing in other parts of the media.

I’m sure the judgement is just one of the many good things to come out of World Youth Day (on which I am an expert – it’s just that I need 4 or 5 quotes from other stories before I can write about my knowledge).

But in one way, a finding against the Iemma Government’s repressive law could be seen as regrettable (hang on – what the fuck am I talking about – there’s no mention of this law in my opening statement. The readers won’t know what I’m yabbering on about. Ah, fuck ’em, the university educated wankers – let them figure it out for themselves if they are so smart. I’ll just tell them I know about everything – that’ll hoodwink the dills).

Had the law, in which I am very conversant, been upheld, it could have possibly been applied in reverse.

And then the readers who don’t want the whaffling of some bitter old newspaper editor who also failed as a shock jock pushed down their throats (as I regularly do – and with pride) could have asked their state governments for similar protection.

But now we’ve all just got to put up with that annoying thing called free speech (can they hear the irony in my tone, ho, ho).

I’m not blaming the organisers of WYD and the pilgrims for being particularly annoying here. Having nurtured my journalistic career skills in a place where mediocre is encouraged (as it is in WA, thankfully), I’ve become so parochial as to think it’s a good thing that there’s a Nullabor plain between us sandgropers and that Vision 2020 chardoney crowd on the eastern seaboard who think Cate Blanchett can make a meaningful contribution to society outside of those high brow movies she keeps pumping out.

For example, trying to wade through the wall to wall coverage of WYD in the pages of the national press (where I find all of my recycled ideas – god bless ’em) in the past week has been a chore for those not held in thrall by the prospect of the Pope being on our shores.

Finding quotes to plunder is even harder, although I will do it now to pad this argument out (and meet my word count).

INSERT YOUR QUOTES HERE (NB – THEY MUST TOTAL AT LEAST 1500 WORDS)

NEXT, FIND SOME TENUOS RELIGIOUS LINK AND FIND MORE QUOTES.

I think I’ll now cut to the chase. Basically, I’ll make the point that maybe we as a society would prefer repressive freedom of speech laws so we can stamp out the poligamy-loving Muslims and their ilk.

Then I can have a swipe at the Anglicans, giving me the chance to show my expertise in this particular faith by telling everyone I was raised in the Church of England.

Now comes the final ruse to convince the editor (and the readers, if there any left by this stage) that I have written a lengthy column of substance – one that is worthy of the outrageous sum of money I am paid to peddle out this tripe.

I know I risk annoying Buddhists, Hindus, Calathumpians (nice touch) and others by seeming to ignore them, but I’ve just run out of space.

There is only one Paul Nurry, and that is I Paul Nurry. Let me say from the outset, that if there wasn’t free speech, I wouldn’t be able to say from the outset and at first blush all the time. And never mind World Youth Day, whatever happened to World Blowhard Day?

How dare you. I AM PORL KNURYYY. And it is only I who can tell you all what to think about mandatory sentencing, Meryl Streep, the Liberal Party, Year 12 art, World Youth Day, the Weld Club, how fast cars should rive and, er, anything else. Get some life skills My Ning. You are a disgrace. Can someone tell me how it’s not good riddance to a…no, actually I meant to say I helped make this country great. It’s no surprise to me that my many readers have begun a shrine to my writing and thinking at the Art Gallery Cafe. In a spontaneous outbreak of celebration of everything about me, they read aloud from my great columns while clogging the toilets with Jim Schembri’s movie reviews. The best place them if you ask me. And people ask me all the time. And I, Poorl Nurrey, am not going to bereave people by withholding my acumen. It’s a mystery to me why they don’t ask me to fix the health system too.

Over the years I have learnt to dismiss Paul Murray’s columns as the vacant ramblings of a blowhard ignoramus. I had even started to feel a faint affection for his bumbling amateurish turn of phrase, and his assumption that somewhere in the West’s readership there is a small constituency that gaves a shit about what he says.

His column today was however a reminder that if the oaf is left unattended for any short while, he will actually start to believe he is funny.

The Idi Amin sketch sketch that you published today was wrong in so many ways that it took me a while to organize them into some sort of list.

Firstly, it was straight plagiariasm of the late, great Alan Coren, and his Amin bulletins which were mostly published in Punch. Murray’s last line attribution does not absolve him of having no imagination, or making a dollar out of somebody else’s talent. Coren was a man of great wit and charm, and Murray denegrates the man by daring to consider that they share the same profession. The only characteristic that Murray shares with the Bard of Cricklewood is his girth.

Coren wrote those articles back in 1975, when Amin was in power and in the news, and his speech patterns were familiar to most. That was a time before political correctness, but even so Coren was lambasted for his racial insensitivity, and when he collated his bulletins into a book, it was not allowed to be published in the USA because it contravened numerous statutes with regard to racial vilification. Coren rather sheepishly stopped writing the Amin bulletins back in the seventies. He realized that society had moved on, but that thought has yet to occur to Murray.

I can’t really be bothered going through the rest of it: Murray’s piece was out of date, not relevant to a contemporary audience, and it was not apparent why he was trying to link Stephen Smith and Condileeza Rice with Idi Amin. Murray’s command of the pidgin English was poor, with no grasp of scansion, and was not even a very good mimic of Coren’s style. Finally, it was just not funny. Not even funny in a “I can’t believe he just said that, he’s so politically incorrect” kind of way.

I will be making a formal complaint to the Press Council about this, and I have high hopes that this might finally drive a stake through Murray’s heart and kill off a patchy career that just refuses to die. He failed as a journalist, an editor and a radio host. Now he fails as a columnist, but still won’t get the hint and leave us alone.

As pennance, I think Murray should be forced to dress as Amin, in full dress uniform, with blackface minstrel make-up, and read his article in front of a live audience. I will be front and centre handing out rotten tomatoes.

LOTTA PEOPLE gonna be wonderin’ about how de corner-stone o’ West Australian literature gittin’ laid. Lotta people gonna be walkin’ about over de nex’ few centuries an’ quotin’ de ensuin’ to me at one anudder an’ muttering “How dis great talent kickin’ off? History recognisin’ where he de fust-class journo genius, also de lunchin’ giant o’ his generation, not to mention bein’ a dab hand at art critical, but how it comin’ about dat de great Paul Nurry also wipin’ de floor wid Timmy Winton an’ Randolph Stow an’ Bobby Drewe an’ similar?”
Dis what happen: when I givin’ anudder Weld Club talky, one of my fans (dere be many) say to me: “Paul Nurry Dada, we is needin’ a book of your columns”. Dey say my writin’ is de shinin’ light of de Western World. My wit, my big words, my lovable habit of saying “methinks” an’ “quiet week” an’ de interminable use of de first pronoun – iz all de best gerbalism since dat bloke W.Churchill did his reportin’ from de Bore War.
I am wantin’ to share my Ugandan relations wid you. Ev’ryone wantin’ to know about Allan Carpenter Obote keepin’ de pigs in de bathroom on de Terrace. Is I, Paul Nurry Dada, who will tell you about dem all (and den eat’em). Next I will be on my own tee vee show. What it call? Da Late Sho wit’ de Mooner? Paul Nurry Live? Or sumtin’. Mebbe we had broadcast from da Art Gall’ry Cafe and de peeple read aloud from my writin’s. I speak and da peeples listenin’. Pussonly, I no want da fame and fortune but if da peeples wants me to have it den ok.
For de nex’ column, I be bringin’ da prominence to de main question hangin’ over de WA: i.e. is it true dat de AusPost goin’ to make de nex’ Special Commemorative Issue stamp gonna have Paul Nurry Dada on it along wid de voluptuous Belltower an’ der Weld Club in da backgroun’? Den da Paul Nurry Day will have de Mamma Mia music played on de wireless all day long in honour.

Most people would be used to, (or should I say numbed by) Paul Murray padding out his material with 25% or more cut and pasted quotes, but to rip off an ancient Private Eye (Correction, Punch) idea to cover virtually an entire column is a new low for him. I’m sorry, “Apologies to Private Eye.” (Punch) doesn’t cut it Paul. And, earth to Paul Murray – Idi Amin, was around in the 1970’s. His reign ended around the time this would still have been funny. The West is really after the young demographic isn’t it? Idi who?

Someone as po faced and humourless as Paul Murray tackling comedy material is almost funny in itself. Paul you forgot to add “Is this thing working?” Tap, Tap, at the end. Apart from that, it was impossible to even work out what his point was. Condee is Black? Was that it? The whole thing is hamfisted gibberish.

Could you do an impression of Eccles for us next time Paul? I hear The Goons are the latest thing.

So our low rent newpaper columnist is at it again, trying to be clever, but coming across as a super dooper low rent version of James Joyce (Finnegan’s Wake) and Frank Zappa (Thing Fish).

It’s hard to imagine that such an attempt at post modernism could be so low rent – if he made films they would probably be duller than Warhol’s black and white stuff from the mid-late 1960s.

However, the question we should ask is whether or not this cheapo crap is actually racist? After all, had he copied some local indigenous dialect instead of a bogus African one, he would have, no doubt, come under fire from the don’t-offend-me brigade.

And yes Mr Lazy Aussie – why did he pick Idi Amin as his narrator? Wouldn’t a dry Stephen “let’s stab everone in the back” Smith or a smug Kevin Rudd voice have been a little more appropriate? Maybe sticking to racial stereotypes is easier (and quicker) for him to do. And why on Earth is he having a go at the gag order on the media? I don’t know if anyone else bothered reading PM’s low rent covereage of last year’s federal election in The Worst, but it seemed to me that the opinionated one didn’t bother to ask questions even whan he had the chance (we did, however, have to read about how every man and his dog were trying to contact him on his mobile because he is so friggin’ important).

Given Condi was the main attraction, I’m surprised teh Paulster didn’t use the N word a few times just to spice things up. Let’s just hope he doesn’t try this low rent trick when he attempts a Tarantino rip off.

they were written when Amin was still a figure of fun, and when evidence of his brutality became known Coren stopped pretty sharpish. he later admitted that they were not very funny and in dubious taste.

unfortunately Nurry seems to have slept through the last thirty years of social progress

reading Coren makes me aware of how totally bereft of writing talent this town is:

Agree with you except for one point LA. Nurries shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as Spike Milligan , the second Shakespeare of comedy. I’m still mining the Goons for comedy gold , I tells ya. An Eccles and Bluebottle routine still has life see Cookster and Groucho.

You doin 1000 year old man impersonations, Skink. You didn’t laugh at ” The Life of Brian” ? Yeah. You have to pay attention to the classics whether you use their material or not.e.g Mel Brooks or Tony Martin ( not the Wildside one).

Getting back to The West, did anyone happen to read the story about pint sized papparazi in the Saturday mag?

When I got to the bit where one of the mothers of these precocious little fucktards started talking about how they decided to go it alone because of their differing business goals, I wanted to punch something.

My mood brighted however, when they quoted a talent agent by the name of Jeffrey Wank. I thought it must be a tongue in cheek piece, oh how avant-garde of Teh West.

But no. Jeff Wank is real. I’ve invited him to join my LinkedIn page. Apparently his school mates used to sign his birthday cards, ‘Love to Wank’. Hee hee…

right on your Billship…….think we have some GOD fearing creationists in our midsts………….yes all comedy is totally original with no hint of inspiration or HEAVEN FORBID…. EVOLUTION of a prior form…………………….Skink.. go home and say 100 Hail Marys then proceed to self-flagellate yourself with a copy of the Watchtower till you have been forgiven………….

My recent favorite was “Help” with Chris Langham and Paul Whitehouse. Unfortunately it became it bit too self-referential and Langham found himself in gaol.Langham had also previously written for Milligan.Goons dated ……no, MP……..definitely yea.

go figure……………..R rated soft porn on an outdoor screen 20mx40m……………………………..driving home late at night with parents attempting to avert the kiddies eyes as a bit of “in out-in out” action lights up the clouds……CLASSIC memories….

It’s an outrage! You good people can’t possibly vote Paul Murray the worst journalist. When was that (censored) old bastard ever a journalist? Not that I rate most of my colleagues that highly, Murray would give journalism a bad name if journalists themselves hadn’t already done so.

I still remember the day I first met him. To begin with I thought he was a comedian trying to take the piss out of a Kingswood Country actor. But I noticed all the West journos cringing as he wafted past, all chards, piss, farts and BO smells.

I nominate Colleen Egan (and her editor) for having such complete insensitivity in publishing the Rayney emails immediately after Lloyd Rayney’s aquittal, a piece which could only appeal to bottom feeders and having no purpose but to sell papers.

as a bottom feeder myself, I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading the emails. I just can’t get enough of reading the words ‘Lloyd’ and ‘ladies man’ in the same paragraph. It’s as funny as those UWA billboards with Matthew Pavlich holding up his degree.

given that once the trial was over, the emails given in evidence are in the public domain, then it’s perfectly appropriate to publish them. They had possession of the emails before the verdict, but showed restraint in not publishing them sooner, even though they could probably have got away with it.